The Very Dead of Winter
by greaves
Summary: It's very odd, she decides. Even for a magical wardrobe.


"A cold coming we had of it,

Just the worst time of the year

For a journey, and such a long journey:

The ways deep and the weather sharp,

The very dead of winter."

-from T.S. Eliot's "Journey of the Magi"

* * *

Hermione finds the wardrobe in the corridor and has to look at it more closely. It's in an alcove, hidden in shadows and tricky light, but something about the dust surrounding it catches her eye.

She's nearing the end of her rounds, anyway, she thinks, and the longer she can keep herself away from Lavender, the better. She doesn't bother thinking too hard about why she's never noticed this particular branch of hallway before, even though she passes this way every Wednesday and Friday night—Hogwarts is always covering and revealing new parts of herself.

She examines the carvings on it with a relaxed interest, tracing some of them with a finger. It's very odd, she decides. There is a tree which takes up quite some space, a rather large lion, a man and woman, and then animals of every strange type she can imagine, nothing to link them together, not environment or continent, and then there are magical creatures. Unicorns and pterippi, griffins, centaurs, satyrs.

Probably not a Muggle wardrobe.

It's very odd, she decides again. Even for a magical wardrobe. She's not sure that satyrs figure into the Wizarding World, and since when are beavers widely referenced at all? But the lion is so much larger than the other big cats, and figures so prominently, that she wonders for a moment if this isn't some lost relic of Gryffindor.

It's magic, she doesn't doubt, and now she can't believe that she ever considered it might have had Muggle origins. What would Hogwarts do with a Muggle wardrobe after all, much less tuck it away like it's special?

Hermione considers opening the doors to see if there's anything inside it. Common Sense says that she's stupid for even that small consideration, but surely Hogwarts would never expose to her something harmful, and she really just does not want to deal with Lavender at the moment, and it _feels_ fine, and Ron (or should she call him Won-Won as seems to be the current trend?) has just been acting so beastly lately, why _not_—

The tantalizing smell of the sea gusts out, and when leaning in, Hermione somehow trips forward.

She lands on sand.

* * *

There's no way for her to get back, Hermione realizes first. The wardrobe from the corridor is not here.

It is also, she realizes second, positively arctic in temperature. This observation is compounded in intensity when some of the sea laps at her feet, soaking through her shoes and socks, as well as the bottom foot or so of her robes. Hermione scrambles backwards on the beach, hoping to avoid the next push of water, and cursing her now-numb shins and feet.

The wind isn't much better. Its blow is icy and adds more chill to her already chilled body. She can't stay like this, she understands. She begins combing through her pockets with clumsy hands, alighting eventually on her wand. Thank god she has her wand.

Her pronunciation is a bit sloppy, but Hermione succeeds in performing a Warming Charm. She grits her teeth as her lower body protests painfully. She casts a Drying Charm for good measure, and then forces herself to observe her surroundings carefully, all the while swearing at herself for opening that blasted wardrobe.

The beach is wide, but there is snow not a foot from where it ends. Bizarre, Hermione thinks. Isn't proximity to bodies of water supposed to have a moderating effect on extreme temperatures? Something like that, she thinks. But then again, for all she knows, she got dropped at the edge of Antarctica. Perhaps the snow is normal—the details of meteorology and biomes were not something that she'd ever made a point of studying.

The weather, however, is not violent. The more appropriate adjective would be dead.

Besides the gusting of the wind, there is no movement or especial variation in color. Everything here is in shades of white and grey, liberally blanketed with snow and ice. Even the sand and water appear dark or colorless.

Her Warming Charm wears off, and Hermione scrambles to reapply it, thinking that the wind bit through it awfully, maybe even unnaturally, quickly. She needs a proper fire if she plans on lasting long enough to find her way back to Hogwarts. (This time, Ron's "Are you a witch or what?" isn't helpful—she has no jars for flames, and actually needs wood.)

She stands up in her blessedly dry shoes, and marches for where she can see a forest.

* * *

**A/N**: So this was sitting on my hard drive. It's a good bit of fun, and, no, I'm not going to continue with it. I'm much better at starting stories than finishing them. I would, however, love to hear your thoughts!


End file.
